Let me clarify the "n/a" score.
Example: a question will ask if the pt was assessed for a risk for Falling
in the Emergency Room.
The audit is done on the unit after the patient is admitted. If the pt was
not admitted via the Emergency room, then the answer is n/a . (there is
another question later about the pt being evaluated for Falls on the unit
itself)
Thus an audit done on 5 pts, with one patient not being admitted from the
ER, and the other four all having been documented as being assessed for Falls
in the Er, scoring would be:
100% (four yeses and one n/a answer)
5 patients, one not from the ER and two of the others not assessed
appropriately for Falls in the Er would equal:
60% (two no answers would subtract 40% )
Scoring is based on the idea that you start with 100% and each negative
answer takes away 20 from that score.

NOW that 40% score would attract attention and the ER would have to document
what happened that these patients weren't appropriately evaluated for their
Fall Risk.
The averages of all the units and then the YTD are only meant to give an
overall snapshot of how all the units are doing as a whole. One poor number
would be helped tremendously by the majority of good numbers for the overall
average, but the individual numbers are looked at and evaluated also.
Just want to clarify that the overall average is not to outweigh the poor
numbers, but to put them in perspective.
Any single unit that consistently reports low numbers on the audits are
investigated.


"joeu2004" wrote:

On Feb 12, 11:32 am, Mike H wrote:
so is the averaging of the averages a big deal?

No, at least not based on what you describe

Yes it probably is a big deal. The OP refers to N/A as being a possible
answer which attracts no score so it therefore follows that there could be a
different number of scoring questions in each survey (some could all be N/A)
and that will lead to incorrect conclusions being drawn from taking an
average of an average.

I think you assume that "Meenie" is taking the average of the answers
(yes, no, N/A). I do not read it that way. My interpretation is that
"Meenie" is taking the average of 5 "scores", where each score is (to
put it more simply) 100% minus 20% for each "no" answer.

But I would agree that "Meenie's" explanation leaves much open to
interpretation.

Nonetheless, it does not matter if N/A is zero. In your
interpretation (as I understand it), the number of answers is the
same: 26.

The average of averages is the same as the average of all data if the
divisor is the same each average. It does not matter if some data are
zero.

That is not the case in the example you gave: an average of two
columns with different lengths.